of Trust and Necessity
by RoseApprentice
Summary: A story of card games and dubious claims. After five years, Loki finally escapes Thanos's pack. And immediately gets all snared up in a new one. Ingredients: Frostiron (Tony/Loki), Alpha/Omega AU, Alpha Tony, Omega Loki, pack feels, and a few cuddles.


A/N: I cut a couple hundred words of smut from this when I moved it over from AO3 to comply with the terms of service here, although it was never all that smutty to start with. Those who want to read the full version can find can find a link to my AO3 account on my profile. Also, firefly spoilers ahead.

* * *

Loki ran. He tore through the hallways with the drive of panic, and the startled focus of playing out an escape he'd long planned, and never believed he'd execute. He raced through corridors, into the stairwell and up where they'd prepared for down, found the fire exit (they'd have that covered), ran straight for the opposite wall and took the window at a leap. _Now land on your feet Loki, but take much of the weight with your hands; your hands are no use to you if you can't run._

He landed hard, rolling readily forward onto his hands and then his shoulder and back, dispersing the impact, and then lay winded for a few precious seconds before he rolled to his feet and took off running down the street. He'd sprained his left ankle a touch, minor enough that it might have given him no trouble if he'd had more time to let his body recover from the fall, but as it was the abused muscle spasmed and swelled under the constant impacts and contractions of his sprinting pace.

He caught attention as he ran, a badly bruised omega racing full throttle down a daytime city street, and that was a problem. At least he wasn't in heat, and that was for the first time in a long time as Thanos liked to induce heats artificially in his pets, to keep them confused and desperate. Loki had spent years learning to think clearly through them, and so he'd managed to know the layout of the building he'd just left, and the roads around him. He'd been ready when they took him off the drugs to let his body withdraw a little. The intention was to let the pills regain their potency, and they never imagined what Loki might accomplish with a cool head.

Now his unusually clear mind was telling him that he was in trouble. This was as far as he was going to get. His plan had involved blending into the crowd and stealing enough money to arrange transport out. He'd not taken into account how much he would stand out like a sore thumb in the washed and unwounded population of the city streets, most of them betas to his omega, a conspicuous difference.

There was the crack of a gunshot and pain lancing up his right leg, but his stride held true. The bullet had scraped along his right medial calf, only just too deep to be called a graze. They were trying to catch him alive then, if they'd aimed that low. Loki kept running, but the flex of muscles in his calf was pushing blood out through the bullet wound, and he hadn't been well hydrated to start. He needed water if he was going to stay conscious. He stopped running and ducked into a store, muscles sore and cramping, shivering with the onset of a gripping chill.

"_Jesus fucking Christ_," someone swore as soon as he limped in.

"Beaten and ready for the crucifixion," Loki gasped absently as he took in his surroundings. He leaned a hand against the counter and winced, realizing his left wrist was far more damaged from the fall than his sprained foot.

He was in a small drugstore, really more like an apothecary, cozily furnished and crowded with shelves and herbs, and there was a very comfortable looking couch in the corner that kept distracting him with its comfortable-looking-ness when he needed to focus on other things. The person who had cursed was the only other occupant, a short but solid man who looked to be in his thirties. An alpha (damn), with a neat goatee and a look of growing horror on his face. Loki trained his eyes on the other man and pulled a knife from his belt that he'd been saving for a moment of desperation. Even alphas could bleed.

"Whoa." The man held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "No call for that. Just tell me what you're after. You want my money? Some kind of drug? Banner's out for a few minutes but once he gets back we can set you up with something. I gotta say, you really don't look so good. Just tell me what you need." The room swayed. "Hey! Focus! What do you _need_?"

"Water," Loki whispered, and he swore when his knife slipped from numbing fingers.

The alpha stepped closer once the knife was on the ground. There were pounding footsteps approaching, and the shouts and scents of a familiar pack coming for him. Desperate and out of options, Loki tried something that never, as a rule, ended well.

He asked for help.

He laid his hands in the alpha's shoulders, as much to stay upright as for emphasis. "I need to ask you a very great favor."

"Who are you? There's water in the back. Come with me."

Loki was seeing spots, and gravity was pulling him in odd directions. He didn't have much time to communicate his plea. "When they come for me, _lie._ Tell them you accepted me into your pack. Better yet, tell them I'm dead." _Believable enough. I rather look it._ "Whatever it takes to make them abandon the search. Please, if you do this, I…" _I can give you money, I'll sleep with you_, come on, _Loki,_ lie, _hurry, make it worth his while_. "If you do this, I…" Loki saw black.

.:.

Loki dozed, nearly waking, to the feel of a headache and the sound of raised voices. He heard the Other's voice, slimy and vicious. "Loki is a part of _our_ pack. If he is kept from us..."

And then the stranger's voice: "As of today, he's a probationary member of _my_ pack. As far as _you're_ concerned, that makes him my stuff. So you can get the hell out."

Loki could smell the new alpha's scent on him, so he must have rubbed up against him while Loki was out. A violation, and a necessity, and a kindness, if kindness was what this man had in mind by laying claim to him.

Suddenly the Other's voice was far too close for comfort. "You think you can run, pet. You think he cannot find you? Thanos keeps very close track of his omegas."

There was a growl and a cracking blow, and the Loki heard the Other snarl and retreat, and the beta's overpowering scent mercifully started to dissipate. The Other's footsteps disappeared out the door, an unexpected blessing. Now Loki only needed to regain consciousness and run before they realized he hadn't switched packs. He needed to get far away, somewhere an omega could live alone.

When Loki, as a teenager, had left his first pack, he had thought no one could possibly be worse than Odin in treatment of the weaker members of their group. Thanos had proven that to be a ludicrous naivete on his part. Loki didn't belong in any pack. Now, the farther he could run, the better off he'd be.

"What is it with people and trying to take my stuff?" the new alpha said, low and angry to the quiet room, and Loki realized he'd badly miscalculated. He tried to push himself up, felt the blood leave his head, and blacked out again.

.:.

When Loki finally, properly woke, he was in a well-lit bedroom, and someone was wrapping a bandage around his right calf. His headache was intensifying between dehydration and blood loss and an excess of light.

The man standing over him adjusted his glasses and looked at Loki's face. "Oh good, you're awake." He removed a pair of latex gloves and threw them away, then walked around and held out an open bottle of water. "I'm doctor Bruce Banner. Tony said to tell you you're safe."

Loki leaned up on one elbow, accepted the bottle and took a long pull. "Who's Tony?"

"Our alpha, Tony Stark. You met him at the shop."

"Tony Stark," Loki repeated the name. It sounded familiar, a name associated with gadgets and the occasional overheard conversation about finances. So unless he was mistaken about the name, another wealthy pack had claimed him. That was never a good sign. He lay back and closed his eyes briefly, frustrated and exhausted.

Banner took off his glasses, folded them into a compact slip of glass and golden metal, and gestured around the room with them. "This is your room. If you need anything, I'm just across the hall. If you get hungry, go left down the hall and you'll get to the atrium. There's a kitchen down there, not too hard to find. For now I'll let you rest." Banner walked out, switched off the main light leaving only the bedside lamp on, and closed the door after him.

Loki waited until he heard Banner walk away and the sound of another door closing after him before he gingerly sat up and took stock of his body. He was bone tired, and his sides and legs ached from running and from bruises sustained before he started on his escape. But he could move, and that would have to do. His left ankle and wrist had both been wrapped, and the lack of a cast on his wrist was promising - that likely meant no break.

He drained the rest of the bottle and placed it on the table next to the lamp, then swung his legs over the side of the bed and tested his feet against the ground. His left ankle twinged, but it would take his weight even now that the numbing effects of adrenaline had dissipated and everything hurt. His already ragged clothes had been partially cut away to check his injuries, and a fresh change of clothes sat folded on the dresser for him. He changed into them, blue jeans and a black T shirt, and quietly slipped out into the hall.

He went right first, thinking of escape and being contrary on general principle. The house he found himself walking through was clearly a mansion, open and clean, and parts of the hall overlooked the atrium Banner had mentioned. He wondered if the whole building was like this. He wondered if there were uglier rooms, dungeons, or at least a neat, pristine prison to keep an omega captive while in heat. He wondered if he'd always remember this place as open and clean, or if he would see it as he now remembered the finer rooms of Odin and Thanos's houses, as a beautiful facade to hide an ugly truth.

What had he been thinking, throwing himself on the mercy of a stranger? He'd only switched from one master to another. He had trouble believing that anyone could be worse than Thanos, but he'd thought that about a few alphas before, and had yet to be correct in his optimism.

The hall came to an end with a large window that looked over the Pacific Ocean from a height Loki didn't particularly care to try jumping from. More hungry than contrary now, he tried the left hall Banner had directed him to, and took the staircase down, finding his way easily to the kitchen. The fridge yielded more bottles of water, and he started in on one while he poked around further.

"Bruce said you were resting," said a familiar voice, and Loki jumped a little and turned to face Tony. The alpha lifted his hands again like he expected Loki to somehow pull another knife out of the clothes provided, but there was humor in his voice when he said, "Just take the water and go. I don't want any trouble."

Loki considered actually leaving, but decided he was hungry enough to trust his assessment that Tony was joking. He turned back to the cupboards.

"Looking for anything in particular?"

"Food."

"Food. Did not see that one coming. Soup's on the second shelf over the microwave."

Soup did sound appealing. With how little Loki had been eating, cardboard might sound appealing if he weren't a little queasy with the aftereffects of injury and shock. Loki selected something with chicken and noodles and set about preparing it.

"So. The creepy guy earlier said your name was Loki. Is that what you like to be called?"

"Yes."

"Is there a last name that goes with that?"

"No." As disappointing as the outside world had proven, Loki had no intention of rejoining the ranks of Odinsons.

"Alright," Tony accepted that readily.

While Loki ate his soup, Tony gave him a rundown of the pack members, names, appearances and roles, when meals were held and so forth, and finished with, "Any questions?"

Plenty, but was it safe to ask? Whatever cruelty he might be hiding, Tony didn't seem immediately temperamental, so Loki opted to speak his mind. "Yes. Am I a prisoner here?"

Tony opened his mouth and closed it again, then shrugged. "_I'm_ not gonna stop you from leaving. But I am gonna tell you that Thanos has people watching the house, and even if he didn't already know where you are, you wouldn't get far in your current condition. Believe me, the last thing I want is an unwilling pack member, but leaving my protection right now would basically be suicide for you."

_I don't believe you._ Then again, everything but the "unwilling pack member" bit was likely enough. Loki was probably safer staying than running, at least until his wounds healed. "So I am a prisoner here."

"Not my call, but for all intents and purposes, yes. Once your wounds heal up, if you like, we can try to smuggle you out. I don't like that option; it's not safe. But if you want out, that's what you get. Doc says three weeks at least, probably more like six if you want to be able to fight with that wrist. In the meantime, Thanos can tail us all he wants, but he's not getting his hands on you."

"You're going very far out of your way to protect me."

"Eh." Tony shrugged it off.

"What do you expect in return?"

"Nothing."

Loki narrowed his eyes. "Bullshit."

Tony looked peeved. "I protect my pack. That's you. I don't expect payment for that, it's just part of the alpha deal."

"I'm not part of your pack, and the kind of favors alphas trade in… you won't take from me without a fight."

Tony frowned. "How long have you been under Thanos's thumb?"

Loki lifted his bowl to drink the last of his broth, and set it down empty. "Does it matter?"

"Well, there's a such thing as a decent alpha. You don't seem to have heard of it."

"In my experience, it's a myth."

Tony sighed and crossed his arms. "Look, as long as you're here, you're my pack. That's instinct, I can't really help that. I'll tell you what that _doesn't_ mean: it doesn't mean anyone gets to touch you without my - without _your_ say-so," Tony quickly corrected, and Loki raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "Fuck, look, Freudian slips aside, you _are_ safe here. If anyone in my pack even looks at you wrong, you come to me and I'll deal with it. If _I_ even look at you wrong, you let me know, and I'll steer clear of you for the rest of your stay. Or you can let Pepper know, and she'll give me a knock upside the head, and maybe even throw me out of the house until you leave."

"Pepper. Your second in command?"

"Yeah, but she can alpha in a pinch. You can trust her, she's a better person than I am."

"Hm."

"But you're not _gonna_ trust us, are you?" Tony realized.

"What choice do I have?" Loki said, and stood to leave. At the door, he turned back, realizing how rude his exit was, and how much he owed this man. "I'm sorry. I am very grateful, for your protection and your help. It's... been a very trying day." Week. Year. Life.

Tony nodded sympathetically, and with that, Loki returned to his room and lay down to rest.

It was true, though. He had no choice but to trust these people. He was completely at their mercy, wounded and trapped. The trust of a prisoner for a jailer, the trust of a downed soldier for the opponent holding a knife to his throat. Helpless trust. He could no more distrust them than he could believe in them.

Loki was an omega, a valued commodity, and enough people by now had tried to earn his trust, and betrayed him every time. Trust was a brutal necessity. Faith was something else entirely, and he was fairly sure he had no more faith to give anyone.

.:.

When Loki came down for breakfast the next morning, the whole pack was gathering for the meal. Tony had listed Saturday breakfasts among the meals they all took together. Loki lingered on the staircase away from the group, watching, avoiding the crowd and matching faces by description to the names he'd heard yesterday.

Clint Barton, archery teacher. Natasha Romanov, the one with scarlet hair, taught mixed martial arts at the same school. Steve Rogers, blond, ex military, now he did nonprofit work. Bruce Banner, Loki had met. He had a very small medical practice consisting entirely of house calls, but mostly managed the drugstore in town that Loki had stumbled into earlier. There was Pepper Potts, with hair a more golden red, and yes, even from this distance she did smell mildly of alpha, but she clearly yielded the role to Tony in the body language of how the two moved past each other.

Once they were mostly settled, Loki made his way fully into the room and took a seat at the end of the table, opposite Tony. Tony introduced him. "Loki, this is everyone. Everyone, this is Loki. He's going to be living with us for a while."

"Not here to stay, then?" Natasha asked.

"No. I leave in six weeks." Loki picked the longer time frame Tony had stated. He was eager to be gone from here, but he wasn't a complete fool. He'd need to be in top form if he was going to flee from Thanos and live.

They eyed him curiously and asked him a few questions. When he responded minimally with "yes"s and "no"s, and when some of his answers obviously came with unpleasant implications ("What's your favorite food?" "Whatever I can get."), they quickly moved on to more comfortable topics and let him be.

Loki left as soon as breakfast was over, snatching a book from the library and retreating back to his room to read. Assorted Shakespeare. He remembered liking Shakespeare as a child. The humor was just as infantile as he'd remembered, and it still served to make him chuckle. Bad puns and innuendos, no wonder this had stayed popular for so many centuries. Alternatively, if there was one thing Shakespeare could do, it was put emotion to phrase. A dick joke one minute, a poignant expression of the human condition the next. This playwright made words an art of chaos. Loki reveled in it. He had enough chaos in his head to last a lifetime, but he needed words.

.:.

Thursday night was a game night in the pack, varying card games and occasional gambling. Bruce tended to win at Rummy and other games near to pure numbers. Games of deception like Bullshit went to Natasha. Tony generally won at poker and other gambling games, as something about the risk of a bet seemed to sharpen his instincts.

Tonight it was hearts. If Loki was to be believed, he'd never played a card game before in his life. He tolerantly listened while they explained the rules and he allowed himself to be dealt in and the other pack members took turns waiting out hands to keep the number of players down to six.

Loki lost the first few rounds by a landslide as he got a sense for the game, but the way he went about losing tugged at Tony's attention. Loki was pressing up against the boundaries of the game, testing different strategies and discovering which ended badly and why. He was losing the way Tony would lose if he were presented with this card game for the first time (and were a little worse at calculating odds).

So it didn't come as a surprise to him when Loki's scores grew lower and lower - an improvement in this game - and after just a few hands it became clear Loki was the guy to beat in any game Bruce opted to sit out. Despite mentions of beginner's luck, they all agreed to an extra round of games the next day just to test the shiny new toy that was Loki's learning capabilities. By the end of the next night, the newcomer could mop the floor with Tony in a game of Poker, and won Rummy and Hearts only a little less often than Bruce, even when the doctor was in the game.

Even when winning, though, Loki remained withdrawn. He spoke only enough to satisfy the rules of the game, and still answered personal questions minimally or not at all. When choosing a seat, he always gave himself as much space from the other players as the table allowed. And yet, he never said no when invited to play.

Poker with Loki became Tony's favorite thing pretty much overnight, and he started declaring impromptu games whenever he could get away with it. Playing against Loki was like flying. The weight of the bets felt palpable and daring, and there was something deeply comprehending in the way Loki played with him and manipulated him out of all his chips. Tony had never enjoyed losing so much.

.:.

For Loki, the weeks passed in a blur of surprising comforts and tense uncertainties.

No one touched him, but Tony gave a lot of false starts. He would reach out to touch Loki and recall halfway through that he'd not been granted that right. When he got up from the dinner table, he'd clap everyone on the shoulder, and his hand would start toward Loki and then withdraw awkwardly. It was clear that man wanted badly to touch him and was resisting the urge at every turn.

The possibility that Tony might really be a good man began to take shape in Loki's head, and he worked to keep the notion under a the healthy scrutiny of doubt. _Don't let your guard down,_ he told himself, and tried vainly to imagine what he could do to protect himself if the pack did start to treat him less like an equal and more like, well, an omega.

Loki couldn't remember a time when he'd ever been allowed his own space. Now he had a room no one would enter without his permission, and a body no one even stood near without first asking. It made him feel a bit like a leper, but more than that it made him feel free. _Imagine how you'll feel when you really are free of any pack,_ he told himself.

.:.

Loki won the very first time he played Bullshit - the Thursday night card game of the week. The second round, he won again. It was unheard of for anyone but Natasha to win this with anything but a very lucky hand. She was the best liar and the best reader of lies that anyone in the pack had ever encountered, and she had this game down to a science. Here was Loki, in his first two games against her, winning soundly.

Natasha took the third game by a narrow margin, and after that everyone else backed out just to drink tequila and watch the two go at it. They dealt a third of the deck to no one to keep each other's hands a mystery and, for all intents and purposes, the two sparred. Loki lost a little of his edge as Nat got a sense for his play style, but he maintained a slight lead all evening.

It was over an hour after they started playing one-on-one that Loki, with too much liquor in him and the judgement-blurring high of a winning streak, said, "Let's make this a _proper_ game of bullshit." He took a shot of tequila and held up three cards. "Three threes. I was once, very briefly, part of the Latveria pack. Bullshit, or no?"

Natasha stuck out her chin a little, coolly meeting the challenge. "Bullshit."

Loki turned his cards around and revealed all threes. "You next," he said and dropped his cards on the table.

Natasha put down two cards atop his threes. "Fours. Natasha is not the name I was born with."

Loki shrugged and declined to challenge, picking out his next discard. He conspicuously picked his cards from two sections of his hand, implying he was going to lie, which was probably a bluff or a double bluff. "Two fives. Loki _is _the name I was born with."

Natasha let it go and took her turn. "A six. My mother had a saying she loved. 'Amare et sapere vix deo conceditur.' I have no idea what that means."

Loki narrowed his eyes. "Bullshit. I think you know Latin." He flipped up her card and found a seven.

Natasha added the discard pile to her hand.

The game continued. The claims got longer, more personal and more elaborate. Stories of abusive parents, elaborate tricks pulled on siblings, and horrors remembered from time spent in less pleasant packs than this one.

Late in the game, Loki held up three cards and dubbed them queens. Then he told a story about an omega he'd known in Thanos's pack. A woman named Gamora who Loki had become friends with. It was a brutal story full of rape and trauma and cruel ironies, and the woman had ultimately died. Loki's voice nearly broke at one point near the end of the tale, and the pack listened, sick with horror and pity that Loki had even seen those events unfold.

Natasha stared hard at him after he finished speaking. They'd picked up enough discards by now that this had long since become a game of absolute information, and they were both nearing a perfect familiarity with each other's hands. She _knew_ he had three queens, and it would hurt his chances to put down anything but what he claimed, no matter what Natasha did. Her voice shook a little when she finally said on a whisper, "_Bullshit._"

Loki grinned maliciously and turned around his cards. Three sixes. She'd been right to call him out. He picked up the discard pile, shrinking his lead and almost but not quite bringing the size of his hand even with Natasha's. There was a collective sigh of relief from the audience at learning the story really had been fictional.

That one game kept them up until two in the morning, at which point Loki finally discarded the last of his hand and won, and the pack dispersed for bed.

.:.

The pack didn't officially eat breakfast together on Friday mornings, but as they couldn't seem to resist analyzing last night's game, the breakfast table was full late the next morning once everyone had slept off the alcohol.

Loki generally declined to comment on the previous night. He was nursing a hangover and eating syrup-drenched pancakes in morose defiance of various suggestions that he stick to something easier on his stomach.

"I don't understand why you're not more excited," Clint told him. "You have somehow successfully_ out-Natasha'ed _Natasha."

Tony shook his head. "Naw. Loki won the card game. Natasha won the other game."

"How's that?" Steve inquired.

Natasha explained. "Loki won the game because most of his claims about his cards were true, and he knew I wanted to see his face when I called bullshit. But I learned more about him than he learned about me."

Clint put a hand to his head. "Oh, man, I just realized. The person who picks up the discard pile gets to see all the discards from bluffs they didn't call. Does that mean you know if he was lying for all the hands where you lost next?"

Tony snorted. "No. He didn't _really_ match up honest stories with honest claims about his cards. That would be too... _fair_."

Loki tossed Tony a small, pleased smirk at that insight.

"Tony's right," Nat agreed. "A liar as good as Loki, we'll never know which stories were true. Best you can do is read the style of the lies. With a good liar, everything they say is a self-portrait, because they have too much say in their own words. And the style of his stories told me something way more immediately relevant than any of his real sob stories would be. I don't know if any of them were true, but I know the stories he tried to make _me believe_ all ended badly."

Loki stilled in the midst of cutting a pancake.

"What does that tell you?" Pepper pressed, curious.

"It means Loki doesn't really believe he'll ever completely get away from Thanos," Natasha explained. "He lies as if happy endings are for suckers."

Loki bolted from the table, and a moment later the sound of retching could be heard in the nearest bathroom.

Tony dropped his fork to his plate with an angry clatter. "You had to go there. _Really?"_

Natasha grimaced, but Clint defended her. "Hey, she asked. And between the tequila and the syrup, this was going to happen sooner or later."

Steve sighed. "So, if he's a better liar than you are, can we trust him?"

Tony fielded this one. "Another thing about Loki's stories: the people who get hurt and betrayed don't ever have it coming, and their hurt doesn't get glossed over. He casts victims as protagonists. Loki's not gonna hurt us unless he decides he's the villain of his own story."

"Could that happen?" Steve asked.

No one had an answer.

.:.

It was just over a month after his arrival that Loki made a rare decision to brave the crowd in the dining room and help set up for dinner, which was a far worse idea than he'd imagined. There was noise and close quarters, and that was only a little nerve-wracking. He was snapped out of a mild daze when Pepper put a hand on his arm to get his attention, asking him to carry a dish of salad out to the table.

"_Pepper!_" Tony barked, suddenly furious. The room went quiet and Pepper winced, withdrawing her hand.

"It's alright," Loki said, confused, but that didn't seem to help.

"Outside," Tony ground out, gesturing his second in command to follow him.

Loki went to follow as well, but Natasha held an arm up in front of him, shaking her head.

Steve declared that the alphas wouldn't want them to hold up dinner, so the pack sat down to an uncomfortable meal. Through the sliding glass doors, Tony and Pepper could be seen out on the balcony, and they were clearly shouting at each other, occasionally loud enough for their voices to be heard through the thick glass, though their words were indistinguishable. Once seated, Loki considered twisting around to look, but opted to mind his own business.

"This is awkward," Bruce commented, watching them.

Steve shrugged. "Tensions run high. It happens. They'll be back once they've got it out of their systems."

Tony and Pepper eventually joined the meal, but the tension in the air stayed palpable, and the meal ended far sooner than usual.

.:.

That evening Loki made his way to the training room on the ground floor. He'd started taking fighting lessons from Natasha in the evenings shortly after the night they played Bullshit, training alongside Bruce, Clint and Steve.

Loki paused when he entered the room and found only Natasha. "Where is everyone?"

"No lesson tonight. We need to talk."

Loki felt suddenly wary, alone in a room with a woman he knew could overpower him. Pointless, though, to be more cautious now than when he was outnumbered. Hiding his unease, he shrugged and sat. "Very well."

"I want to know if you understood what happened today."

"Power struggle between two alphas sharing a pack. Seems natural enough."

Natasha sighed and pulled up a chair to sit across from him. "Figures. You're likable enough, Loki, but for someone with savant-level insights into human behavior, you've got a hell of a blind spot."

Loki looked at her flatly. "And for a master of manipulation, you've got a hell of a sense of tact. Tell me what I'm missing."

"That fight today was about you. You weren't just the topic or the last straw, you were the driving reason."

"My presence is a problem here?" Loki asked lightly, feeling his stomach sink.

"Your presence is fine. Your behavior is a problem, and if you're gonna keep avoiding Tony, things are just gonna get uglier."

Amazing, how quickly a sinking fear of being pushed away could turn into a gut-twisting terror of being trapped. "I was under the impression that nothing would be expected of me in that regard." _Or rather, you've all been working very hard to give me that impression._

Natasha gave him a long look, then slumped a little. "Right. You're right. I suck at tact. You've never been in a healthy pack, I don't think, so you can't know how this is supposed to work. Here's how things generally go: Everyone touches the alpha. Everyone cuddles with the alpha sometimes. Everyone smells like the alpha, and the alpha can relax because his territory smells like him. It's all very warm and fuzzy and little creepy if you think about it for too long at a go. Sex doesn't play into it at all."

"That's… different," Loki concluded, surprised. He'd had some impressions of all that regarding a beta's role in the pack, but that combination of expectations and boundaries had never been applied to _him._

Natasha went on. "I don't want to push you. No one wants to push you. But you do need to understand the consequences of your choices. Tony's not gonna touch unless you let him. That means there's an omega walking around this house without a sniff of alpha on him. That puts everyone on edge. Then you go letting another alpha touch you who _isn't_ him... It's actually pretty impressive he didn't bite someone's head off sooner."

Loki nodded to indicate that he comprehended, and stood to leave without a word, thinking hard as he walked.

He found Pepper in the kitchen, finishing up with the dishes. Ordinarily, he would offer to help, but he knew better now, and he had, he realized abruptly, a more pressing errand. "Where can I find Tony?"

"He's in his workshop. Right down the stairs around that corner."

Loki walked where directed. He'd never seen Tony's workshop before, had never had reason to seek him out, and something in his instincts twinged with discomfort at that thought, that the place Tony could most easily be found was still unfamiliar to him after all these weeks.

The basement workshop was dark and unfinished compared to the rest of the house, all concrete and scrap metal, for all there were a few finished glass surfaces and the cars looked expensively kept. Looking around, Loki recalled a time when he'd expected to find some horrible dungeon hiding beneath this place's welcoming appearance. Not something he was particularly worried about now. There was a worn couch to Loki's left entering the room, and Tony was sitting on it, looking over machine schematics on his tablet. His motions projected intent focus and the jerkiness of anxiety, nerves clearly frayed to the point of breaking.

"Tony," Loki said.

Tony glared up. "Oh, Jesus, not _you_. Not right now, I need to…" He ran a hand over his face, searching for words.

He stopped and frowned when Loki sat so he was pressed against Tony's side. "You need to touch me. You need me to smell like you. If only for a couple more weeks, I am part of your pack." Loki rubbed his head firmly against the scent spot under Tony's ear to illustrate his point. "You need this. I'm yours. Treat me as such."

Much of the tension eased from Tony's frame at Loki's touch and words. Tony turned and wrapped his arms around Loki's shoulders, pressed his nose against the top of Loki's head and inhaled to reassure himself that Loki really did now smell like his alpha. Loki hadn't imagined how comforting that would be, the touch and the pressure and the way their scents blended. Comfort, comfort, comfort.

Then Tony withdrew him arms and leaned away. "Okay, yeah, that's enough for me to cope. You can have your space back now."

"But I don't want it," Loki said, and it was a good thing he spoke without thinking, because he doubted he could have brought himself to admit that if he'd put any forethought into it.

Tony stared, dumbfounded, apparently not able to process that the omega that had been avoiding him like the plague for a month might now want more than the most minimal touch.

Loki leaned in further and pressed his head against Tony's shoulder, following instincts long frayed and vexed. The draw to touch his alpha had never before brought him anything but pain, so much so that he'd long found it indistinguishable from repulsion. Now he was feeling the cords of his own natural inclinations pulling him where he wanted to be pulled, and finally he saw that pull as something whole, something other than the treachery of his own self-defeating mind. He wanted, and he was meant to want, and there was prickling grief in that, and satisfaction, and relief, and he pushed closer.

Tony's arms went around his shoulders again, and Loki wrapped his arms tight around Tony's chest, tucked his head in the crook of Tony's neck, (and it bent his back at an uncomfortable angle but he ignored that) and he _enjoyed,_ for the first time in a very long time, the sensation of belonging.

Tony indulged Loki's need for touch more than he would have ever expected, and they spent most of the night like that, shifting positions, rubbing wrists and necks and cheeks and noses in various combinations until Tony smelled like Loki and Loki smelled like Tony and they both smelled like TonyLoki.

Loki went to bed that morning still smelling of alpha and belonging, and throughout the day he slept better than he had in many years.

.:.

"Well, I'm satisfied," Bruce said two days later after examining him. "You can leave when you're ready."

Loki felt all expression leave his face. "What?" he said impassively. _Don't panic._

"You're in perfect health. You should keep doing the wrist exercises I showed you for at least a year so it doesn't relapse, but at this point it's stronger than your right. Tony said you wanted to leave as soon as possible. There's no good time for that, but now's as close as any."

Bruce took in how Loki's expression paled, though the omega did an expert job at hiding any other cues that he was upset. "That is, if you want to. Loki, I hope we've made it clear that you're welcome here. I know Tony wants you to stay."

Loki wanted to stay. So much. But. "I can't. With Thanos after me, the farther away I am, the better." _I need to keep him away from my pack. I need to protect you._

Besides, this pack had let him be so far, but what would happen if he went into heat? Could he stand to see who these people would turn into when presented with that temptation? He had a few more months, likely, before that happened. It took a while for heats to start cycling again when they'd been artificially induced for years, but still, it was a gamble. He couldn't stay forever. He was a danger to them, and, indirectly, to himself.

"And you expected to have another week or so on medical leave before you start running again," Bruce deduced. He picked up Loki's wrist again and made a show of reexamining it. "You know, I was wrong. This wrist is healing way more slowly than I would have imagined. Give it another month at least. While you're at it, it wouldn't hurt you to gain more weight and get a few more weeks of martial arts practice in with Natasha before you go out on your own. I'll go tell Tony about the delay," he concluded, and left the room before Loki could object.

.:.

Loki sat on his bed and looked around his room. _His_ room. What an idea that was. He was going to miss it. He was going to miss a lot of things.

The doctor had given him a clean bill of health, for all he had revoked it a moment later. If Loki was going to tear himself away from these people, it had to be now, before he got any more involved. Loki packed what he could, what he thought he'd need in clothes and a little cash. Stealing, but he somehow doubted the possessions were what they would miss. If he took a pill to suppress his scent and wore Clint's jacket, he could take the car from the garage and maybe get a small enough contingent of Thanos's lackeys tailing him that he could lose them in the next town. Decent plan, but he'd need to cut and dye his hair.

It was in the bathroom, with a lock of hair pulled straight and a pair of scissors poised to cut, that he finally stopped to consider what he was about to do. Read: lost his nerve, because as soon as Loki stopped to consider, what little conviction he had gathered scattered under fear and the awareness of the sheer stupidity of his plan.

If he tried to leave without help, Thanos would have him within forty-eight hours. Tony would have no legal claim to Loki, because he had run. He would be trapped exactly where he had started. His new pack might even try to help him anyway, and how would that end for them?

He put down the scissors and his mind started to spiral, whirling through plans and contradicting arguments. He paced, and then at length he left his room and wandered the house. The pack sensed his agitated mood and gave him a wide berth, and eventually he found himself in Tony's workshop, where the alpha glanced up at him from the middle of a complex build.

"Loki, I'm kind of busy, can it-" Then Tony caught of whiff of the panic coming off Loki, saw his face and the indecision and need for comfort wavering against pride and lingering determination. "Shit. Come here."

Tony plopped down on a couch and spread his arms in invitation, and Loki took him up on it, sitting half in his lap and burrowing closer. Comfort, comfort, comfort. _You can't keep this,_ Loki told himself. _It can't last. You're not safe. They're not safe. The sooner you leave, the easier this will be._ "I want to stay," he whispered, angry and helpless against the barrage of reasons to leave. "I just want to stay. Let me stay."

Tony gripped him close. "You're not going anywhere," he said firmly, and that was the end of the matter.

Loki unpacked his things and returned a few odd, stolen items and bills (and if they were missed for the brief time they were gone, no one spoke of it). Tony announced at dinner that Loki's probationary membership in the pack had come to the end and he was now a full fledged member. Varying looks of relief, varying levels of enthusiasm in their congratulations, but all were relieved, all were enthusiastic. Loki realized that somehow every person here had come to want the strange and standoffish omega to be one of them, in spite of the risks that implied. It was touching. It was _confusing._

It was home.

.:.

It was all going too well.

Loki knew it couldn't last.

He _knew._ He knew better than to really hope, and he was ready for it all to go sideways the moment news of Thanos came back into his life.

That did not, in any way, prepare him for the shock he got when Tony strolled into breakfast one morning brandishing a fresh newspaper and announced, "Well, Thanos is dead."

"Dead?" Loki repeated distantly, suddenly not sure if he was correctly remembering the meaning of the word.

"Yup. I didn't even smell any of his betas outside the house when I got the paper. I think they gave up the hunt for you, Lokes."

"Lemme see that." Clint grabbed the paper and laughed disbelievingly as he started reading it. "Oh, man. So that other Alpha the tabloids kept saying Thanos was all hung up on? Ran Volsunga? Apparently he stayed the night at her place and, uh, woke up yesterday morning floating in Malibu creek with his throat slit and not so much with the actually being awake. Wow. Wow."

Loki felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders too abruptly, and gravity was suddenly refusing to hold him properly in place. "I think I'm going to pass out," he observed distantly as grey clouded over his vision.

Tony pulled Loki's chair back away from the table. "Head between your knees, Ichabod," he ordered, and placed a hand on Loki's shoulder to guide him down.

As Loki stared at the floor and the blood returned to his head, it occurred to him that he might really be able to stay here. Forever.

New, strange landmarks appeared in his future. Old age. Marriage. Catching the final episode of "Game of Thrones."

Eventually, he sat up slowly and scooched his chair back toward the table. He continued his meal as if eating eggs and bacon with his pack constituted a perfectly normal Saturday morning.

Because as of right now, it did.

.:.

Tony was playing Go Fish with an omega in heat.

And he was _losing._

Loki's first heat hit far sooner than he or Bruce had expected. Tony had been putting off the whole "Hey is it okay if I fuck you while you're in heat?" conversation, partly because he'd been having trouble thinking a way to phrase the request that Loki might not in that twisty brain of his misinterpret as a demand, and partly because everyone had thought there would be more time.

So the heat had started, and Loki had said early on in no uncertain terms that he both wanted and trusted Tony to keep him company through it. And Tony had explained about the ethics of consent, and the fact that they weren't going to have sex. Loki had understood, and, at the time, seemed untroubled - perhaps even a little relieved - by the information. Naturally, the omega found the restriction more and more troubling as the days passed.

So yes, Go Fish.

Really, really seductive Go Fish.

"Got any fives?" Tony queried.

"I might," Loki allowed, leaning back sinuously against the far arm of the couch. They had moved what they had started to think of as _their_ couch into Loki's room shortly after he went into heat, as he seemed to find its presence comforting. "You could come over here and look for yourself, but that wouldn't be _ethical,_ now would it? Of course, you're only playing against me." Loki leaned forward and looked Tony square in the eyes with a smile full of smug sin. "I'll _let_ you cheat, Tony. No one would ever know."

Tony swallowed and looked down at his cards. "Got any sixes?"

Loki slumped back disappointedly. "_You_ don't have any sixes."

"How can you know that?"

"I asked you three turns ago, and since then you've drawn a five, a queen, and a three."

Tony looked down at his cards and found that Loki was right. "How do you even count cards with all those hormones fogging up your brain?"

"Years of practice."

"You've been playing cards for less than two months."

"Years of practice with the other thing. I could show you a few of the things I learned during that time."

Tony wrinkled his nose. "Yeah, thanks for that. The thought of you being raped by other people is actually a pretty big turnoff."

"Initially, perhaps, but you haven't thought it through. You haven't thought about them putting their hands all over _your stuff,_ as you like to put it. You haven't thought about your own hands, touching everything they touched, voiding their claim to me and replacing it with yours. You haven't thought about proving once and for all that I am really, completely, _your_ territory."

"Like hell I haven't," Tony muttered, and tried again to focus on his cards. The numbers may as well have been norse runes. Except that he could read some norse runes. The whole room smelled like seduction and TonyLoki. It was just every kind of unfair.

Loki slid up next to him and pressed up against his side. "Then you _do_ want me."

Tony rolled his eyes. "I course I want you. I _always_ want you and _shit,_ I should _not_ have said that, but that's _really_ not the point right now. You're not in your right mind, and you can't make this decision. Look, let's, um, let's focus on the game. Got any spades?"

"Spades aren't a number, Tony. Are you sure _I'm_ the one who's not thinking clearly?" Loki chuckled and placed a lingering kiss on Tony's shoulder through his T shirt. "You say I'm in no state to decide this, but my thoughts are clearer than yours. I've been in heat for the greater part of five years. My mind's adjusted to it." He kissed his way up to Tony's ear. "You think this is normal for me? You think I've ever really wanted someone, even in this state? I haven't, Tony, trust me."

"Hah. I've seen you play poker. _Trust_ you..."

"This isn't a game," Loki said lowly.

"All the more reason for you to lie."

"Really. You think I would want anyone else? You think if Pepper came in here, I would press up against her and beg as if she were you?" Playing to his jealousy again. "It is, in the end, a question of whether I _really_ want you, of whether I wanted you already before this week. And the answer…" He started nipping lightly at Tony's ear between phrases. "...is yes… desperately… when we played poker together… the knowing and the challenge when you took me on... those rare games where you really caught me off guard as so few can."

Tony sat as if paralyzed, seeking the will to push Loki away while the omega contemplatively gave up biting for nuzzling so he could talk more steadily. "Natasha can beat me in the occasional game of wits, but she doesn't thrill at it the way you do. She doesn't feel the weight and inertia of the gamble. Can you feel it now, Tony? The pull and risk thick in the air. Every time you ran out of chips I wanted to drag you back to this room and see what you would offer up instead. You could have gambled moans, or pleas, or allowed me to take as I saw fit. And here I am, coherent and certain of what I'd like to do..." Loki exhaled against the shell of Tony's ear, earning a light shudder that ran through Tony's whole body. "Who are you to tell me otherwise?"

Tony shifted to face him, and Loki frowned, suddenly unable to read him. "Ever seen Firefly?" the alpha asked evenly.

"No."

"There's an episode called Our Mrs. Reynolds that I really need to show to you sometime. Point is... I'm going to the special hell," he finished weakly, and pressed his lips against Loki's.

Tony's lips were warm and soft. That kiss was like the first baking sunlight after a cold desert night, and Loki _needed_ it with everything he was. He poured that need into the kiss, sucking and sliding and using every trick of seduction and all the pull of raw need that was in him now to communicate to Tony how much he wanted this. He heard Tony whimper and growl low in his chest, pleasure and claim and answering need, and Loki felt the thrill of victory before Tony abruptly pulled back and stood, leaving him in the cold.

"Tony," Loki growled with a desperate glare. "_Please_."

"Loki, I know you could use someone with you right now." Tony's voice shook as he backed away. "But I need to get out of this situation." He reached the door and closed it behind him as he fled.

.:.

Three days later, Loki showered and left the now painful isolation of his room, finally not smelling of the heat. The rest of the pack, Tony excluded, had taken turns bringing him food and offering any other help he might need, but none had stayed long, nor had he wanted them to.

He put a hamper full of dirty clothes and sheets to start in the laundry, then went off to find Tony.

The alpha was in his workshop fiddling with machine parts, sitting on an armchair he'd moved there to replace the couch that Loki had grown so fond of. The inventor smelled of longing and guilt, both of which intensified when he noticed Loki's presence. "I owe you an apology," Tony said without looking up.

Loki tilted his head as he stepped into the room, feeling curious and irritated and yet oddly playful. "What for?"

"I kissed you."

"Ah," Loki nodded sagely and walked up to Tony's chair. "I can think of a way you could make it up to me."

Tony looked up. "Oh really? Name it."

Loki pulled the machine parts from Tony's hands and leaned over to place them on the floor nearby, settling into the alpha's lap and straddling him. "Kiss me again."

Tony swallowed. "Oh," he said weakly. "Sure." He reached a hand up to the back of Loki's head, threading his fingers through hair still wet from washing, and pulled Loki's head down to his.

Loki felt, in Tony's kiss, echoes of the desperation Loki had pushed at him the other day. The pull, the cramping effort of restraint, the need to dominate and be dominated. Loki tasted it all and returned the kiss softly, lingering and savouring. They moved in and out of the kiss slowly, coming up for air without really parting. "I owe you my thanks," Loki murmured against his lips.

Tony pulled back a little. "What for?"

"For only kissing me. Before." Cutting off Tony's objections, he added, "I know your codes of ethics on the matter, and I know you broke them. But it takes strength of will to resist the draw of even an unwilling Omega in heat. And even the most willing are rarely quite so… _articulate _as I, once the confusion and the hormones come into play."

"Oh, I _so_ need to show you Firefly," Tony said, but distractedly. He was making small talk to divert himself. His pupils were dilated and his pulse growing quick.

Loki noted the changes, pleased, and went on to encourage them. "I would not have thrown myself at you, mind and body, so... wholeheartedly, had I not wanted you with more than just the heat." Loki was working open the buttons of Tony's shirt, fingers dancing over the skin he revealed there. "Still, you were right to refuse me, and if you'll permit me, I'd like to offer an expression of my gratitude." Loki smiled, sweet and predatory.

Tony considered asking if it was _just _gratitude, but the "want you with more than just the heat" bit sort of answered that question, so he agreed hoarsely, "Yeah," and closed his eyes as Loki's mouth found his neck and started exploring all the lines of muscle and tendon there. Tony gave his own hands permission to roam, up and down Loki's back, rubbing hard down his sides, seeking sensitive places and finding them. Just the simple press of their bodies charged with sex and intent felt so good, Tony couldn't even process it, it was overload. He'd wanted this since… since the moment Loki had first touched him, all those weeks ago in Bruce's shop.

Loki's hands found their way into Tony's pants, and if Tony had thought simple touch was overwhelming, it was nothing to this. This was too good, Loki's hands winding over him and finding a rhythm that became the focus of Tony's consciousness, the only thing he could keep track of in the barrage of input - Loki's lips pressing soft against his jaw, Loki's thighs pressing firm against his, Loki's shoulder blades smooth under the hands Tony had run up beneath his shirt, the muscles between them bunching when Loki used one hand to pull Tony's head up into another kiss, melting and desperate - it all fell into a rhythm, untracked and slipping through the cracks, and completely, utterly good.

After a while, they went back to Loki's room, and they pushed closer. They wanted, and they were meant to want, and there was touch and surrender, following the cords of their natural inclinations, pulling them where they wanted to be pulled. And somewhere in the rhythm of push and pull, in shaking and reeling and in placid exhaustion, they enjoyed, completely, the sensation of belonging.

.:.

Monday night was movie night in the pack. Tony lounged on the living room couch with his mate tucked secure in his arms. _His mate._ Tony loved the way those words sounded bouncing around in his head almost as much as he loved the feel of Loki's slim, strong form leaning back against his chest, wrapped up together in an innocent but intimate embrace as the show played and the rest of the pack lounged comfortably around them.

"I swell to think of you in me," the woman on the screen said to the flustered and virtuously difficult-to-seduce captain. "And I see that you do too."

"Yup," said Tony. "This is exactly how it happened with us. Verbatim."

Loki raised an eyebrow. "Really? I must have missed the part where you donned the pretty floral bonnet."

"You were mostly focusing a little lower."

Tony got a number of pillows thrown at his head from various angles, a nonverbal request from the rest of the pack that he not discuss his sex life in their presence.

"Did she just poison him?" Loki inquired, watching the screen.

"See? I told you Saffron was you all over."

"I've never poisoned anyone in my life," Loki asserted.

Natasha said, "Bullshit," without taking her eyes off the screen.

"Never very badly," Loki amended.

"Neither did Saffron," Tony argued. "You'll see."

"And I suppose I can trust you not to trade me away for any advanced weaponry either?"

"Loki, I wouldn't trade you for anything less than a custom Ferrari."

"That's beautiful, Tony," Loki said on a deadpan.

"I know. I only hope you feel the same way."

Loki considered. "I'd open bids at a very ornately crafted knife, I think."

"You're killing me here, love."

"I'd _never. Here_, there are witnesses."

"But how do I know you won't kill me later, once we're alone?"

Loki considered making that an innuendo, but took pity on the other pack members present. Instead, he burrowed his head close against Tony's shoulder. _Safe._ "You might just have to trust me."

* * *

A/N: Thanks for reading. Please comment!


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